Mr. Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator - Briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, 8 April 2025

New York, 8 April 2025

As delivered

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President,

Since we briefed the Security Council on Ukraine two weeks ago, Russian Federation air strikes have continued to kill and maim civilians, including children, and destroy civilian infrastructure.

A massive strike in the densely populated city of Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipro region last Friday resulted in multiple civilian casualties – the second fatal attack on the city in a week.

According to the authorities, 18 civilians were killed, including nine children, and 75 others injured when a children’s playground and nearby residential area were hit. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Ukraine, which verified many of the casualties, reported this was the single deadliest strike harming children since February 2022.

In recent weeks, drone attacks have continued to strike cities and cause civilian casualties. Civilian infrastructure – including healthcare facilities, apartment blocks, schools and children’s playgrounds – have suffered extensive damage. This brutal pattern of civilian death and destruction in populated areas must stop.

Hostilities have also continued in the front-line regions of Kherson, Kharkiv, Donetsk and in the border areas of Sumy, causing extensive damage. More than 90 civilian casualties were recorded in those regions last week, according to authorities.

I saw the impact of these types of attacks first-hand when I visited Ukraine earlier this year. From the families I met in front-line areas near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region to Kupiansk town in the Kharkiv region, they displayed courage, resilience and determination to rebuild their lives and homes. But also, understandable exhaustion, anger and despair that these attacks continue.

Mr. President,

They are right to be angry. Because civilians are paying a devastating price for this horrendous war. OHCHR has now verified the killing of at least 12,910 civilians, including 682 children, and the injury of almost 30,700 across Ukraine from 24 February 2022 to 31 March 2025. The true toll is likely far greater.

Nearly 3.7 million people remain internally displaced, with new waves of displacement in the country’s north-east due to hostilities. Children and their caregivers are being evacuated from several front-line towns. There are almost 7 million refugees from Ukraine recorded globally, mainly in Europe.

Media reports also indicate civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure in the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions of the Russian Federation.

And we remain unable to reach an estimated 1.5 million civilians requiring assistance in parts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions under occupation by the Russian Federation.

International humanitarian law demands that the parties facilitate the rapid, unimpeded access of humanitarian relief for civilians in need. Wherever they are.

Mr. President,

Yesterday marked World Health Day, a moment to reflect on the urgent need to safeguard maternal and reproductive health, especially in crisis settings. A new report released by WHO, UNFPA and UNICEF highlights the state of maternal mortality worldwide, including the devastating toll of conflict on women’s health.

In Ukraine, women and girls are facing a special crisis. Since February 2022, pre-term births have made up nearly 50 per cent of all deliveries, putting both mothers and newborns at high risk.

Intimate partner violence, including other forms of gender-based violence, has surged 36 per cent during this period. Displaced women, especially refugees, are among those facing the most severe mental health challenges, with limited access to protection and care.

Mr. President,

Almost 13 million people across Ukraine need humanitarian support. The majority are women, children, older people and people with disabilities.

In the first two months of 2025, 290 humanitarian organizations – mainly national NGOs – reached 1.7 million people with vital aid and services, including emergency support following strikes.

Thanks to the generosity of donors, 17 per cent of the US$2.6 billion needed for the 2025 Ukraine Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan that I launched with [UN High Commissioner for Refugees] Filippo Grandi in January in Kyiv has been secured – but far more is needed.

Of course, now, we are having to scale back critical programmes. As part of our wider humanitarian reset in response to funding cuts, we and partners are now focusing limited resources on just four strategic, urgent priorities: supporting front-line communities, emergency response, facilitating evacuations and helping the displaced. Increased financial support is vital to ensure humanitarian operations can continue reaching those most in need. Every contribution makes a difference.

Mr. President,

We welcome the announcement of a ceasefire focused on energy infrastructure, as well as negotiations to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea. Ultimately, the best protection of civilians is that this war ends. Until it does, the negotiating priority – whether as part of a temporary pause or lasting agreement – must start from the protection and needs of civilians.

While talks continue, the fighting rages on, civilians continue to suffer, and the humanitarian crisis deepens by the day.

Mr. President,

My two asks today of the Security Council and, indeed, the wider international community go beyond Ukraine alone.

Firstly, I must reiterate that under the international humanitarian law that this Council is here to defend, parties to conflicts must protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. Indiscriminate attacks on them are strictly prohibited: There must be limits to how war is waged. At its best, this Council, and the Member States here, have upheld that idea – even wars have rules. Is that not why we are here?

And yet, on my visits from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan to Lebanon to Myanmar – from where I returned yesterday – I am seeing the opposite: that not only are we not standing robustly for international law, but in some cases we are supporting its debasement. That's the common thread that links these conflicts. And if your principles apply only to your opponents, they are not humanitarian principles.

The world is getting more dangerous for civilians, on our watch. Please, you can do more to ensure that this era of increasingly belligerent, transactional, self-defeating nationalism is not also remembered as one of callous impunity and brutal indifference, in which the rights of civilians are discarded again and again with a shrug. If we do not make our stand on this point, consistently and unequivocally, then what do we stand for anymore? And how can we expect anyone to listen to us, or hope that others will make better choices in the future?

My second ask, Mr. President, is the funding to save lives in an increasingly dangerous environment, and this era of savage cuts. If you cannot stop the attacks on civilians – in Ukraine and elsewhere – please, at least give us the security and resources to save as many survivors as we can.

Thank you, Mr. President.